UEFA Euro Cup 2016

Cheese, wine, foie gras and, of course… football!

While France is not the capital of football, there is no doubt that this country delivered first-class football players and an amazing Euro Cup tournament! Let me take you back to the UEFA Euro 2016 to remind you of France’s wonder in hosting.

France is the only host country to hold the European Championship for a record of three times. The country’s capital is not the only place getting some action - in 2016 the games took place across ten cities: Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nice, Lille, Saint Denis, Saint Etienne and Lens.

What was new at the 2016 tournament?

UEFA Euro 2016 increased the number of teams attending from 16 teams last tournament (2012) to 24 at this tournament. This Championship had a lot of interesting facts that occurred throughout the month. For example, Austria, who have climbed nearly 100 places since their last Euro campaign in 2008 was ranked 10th in the world.

The youngest player at the tournament was England’s very own Marcus Rashford at 18 years old. The oldest player was Mr Gabor Kiraly. He was the Hungary goalkeeper and became the oldest player to represent his country at 40 years old.

The official mascot for the tournament was Super Victor! Do you remember how this guy looked like?

One of the main questions of that championship was not only who would win, but can Turkey continue their incredible Euro record? In 1996 their first time playing, they made the Group Stage, in 2000 it was the Quarter-final, the Semi-final in 2008. The pressure for this underdog was on!

Portugal won the Championship, of course (they were the predicted champions), but this did not happen according to plan. Rising star player Cristiano Ronaldo was forced out of a game after a knee injury that came from France’s Dimitri Payet’s tackle. He did, however, return quickly to the other games and all was restored in Portugal’s climb to the win.

*If you want to know what to do in France, click here and read about 5 non-obvious places to visit in France

Written by Alessandro

Alessandro is from Italy and has watched 3 Euro Cup tournaments live. The 2016 Euros was one of his favourite and made him fall in love with France.